Stupid but Fun!!!

Have you ever done something in your life that was so stupid it could have got you fired but on the other hand, that “something” was so much FUN!?!?  It was the winter of 1993 and Linda and I were working in Fort Vermilion in northern Alberta.  I was flying as an air ambulance and charter pilot and Linda was teaching kindergarten.  It was approx. 9:42 pm and I was playing hockey at the local rink when my pager went off. (Remember those annoying things)?  When I found a phone, dispatch relayed to me that I needed to be at the airport within 15 minutes for a medivac flight to Fox Lake.  I was a little ticked because our game wasn’t over and I would probably not be in bed until after 1 a.m.  I got changed, drove to the airport, met the other pilot Lance, towed our King Air 90(see above) out of the hangar and then loaded up the paramedics in the airplane.  

There is something you need to know about flying air ambulance in a small community.  Quite often we would get to know our patients fairly well because we would fly some of them on a frequent basis.  So was the case with a certain patient I will call “John Doedoe“.  John was known for faking illness at times so he could get a free flight to town because Fox Lake was a bit isolated (a strike against socialized medicine).  He knew the paramedic lingo and would use it often.  Before the EMT would ask him what his pain level was at John would offer the information by stating, “On a scale of 1-10 my pain level is a 10”.  The medics and the pilots found this quite humorous.

So here we were taxiing out to runway 25 when the paramedic Allan casually asked Lance and I, “Guess who we’re going out to get”?  All of us in unison unenthusiastically said “John Doedoe”.  Allan hinted as he asked me, “Hey Rick, I heard there’s going to be a lot of turbulence out there tonight, right“?  I shot back with “I got the same report“!  We all laughed.  We arrived at our destination on a snow covered runway where the nurses would put out battery-powered lamps on the sides of the snowbanks so we could land safely at night.  (We could always tell when there was a new nurse putting out the lamps because the lamps would be put very close together giving us very little room for error when landing between the lights…but that’s another story).  We loaded up Doedoe and took off for Fort Vermilion.  After levelling off at 8500 feet I decided to have some fun.  I took the yolk and jiggled it forward-back and side-to-side, forward-back-side-to-side.  I could hear the medics in the back chuckling a little.  I offered the yolk to Lance and he did the same but with a bit more force.  The chuckling turned into laughter.  Being the Captain, I was not about to be outdone by my co-pilot so I proceeded to yank and bank and create moderate to severe turbulence.  The laughter in the back of the cabin had turned to convulsive hysteria!!!  At that point, reality overtook me and I realized that I had crossed the line from professionalism to feeble-mindedness!

The next day a friend of ours who was a nurse at the hospital called Linda and asked if I had brought in Doedoe from Fox Lake.  Linda asked why and Deb proceeded to tell her that Doedoe was telling everyone that, “That Rick Crosby was trying to scare me last night!  He was rocking the airplane and making it bumpy”!  I appreciate friends that think the best of me because Deb told him, “Rick would never do anything like that“!  When Linda called and told me what was going on, I knew I was in trouble.  I went straight to the GM of Little Red Air Service and relayed to him what had happened before he heard from other sources.  In a small town of 700 people news travels fast…especially when it’s ‘pilots who make their own turbulence’ kind of news!  A couple of days later the GM called me into his office and with a smirk on his face “tried” to rebuke me for my unprofessional behavior.  I bet he wished he had thought of it first!  He gave me a letter of reprimand and I believe to this day it is still in my file in Fort Vermilion. 

What did I learn from this you ask?  Save the fun for your last day at work!!!

Just Call Me Little Red

In 1992 we were living in Fort Vermilion, Alberta, right near Santa’s workshop, and we decided to venture down to THE CITY…. a nine hour drive to Taco Bell. An average temperature for Jan. was -35C…. or FRIGID. In the winter the logging dirt road was frozen over and it saved us about three hours of driving time straight to Edmonton.  The initial 160 mile stretch of roadway was barren and desolate. Red Earth was the un-mapped gas station three hours from home.  We would notify friends of our departure time and if we didn’t call in 3 1/2 hours, they were to come looking for us.

We were driving a royal blue 1985 Honda Civic four door hatchback with minimal rust. It was late at night, but with the Northern lights, the sky was surprisingly lit as were the seven-foot snowbanks on each side of the “highway.” It was like driving in an Olympic luge tube… minus the bobsled.  Music was blaring and we were making good time when I mentioned to Rick from beneath my fur-lined parka hood that I saw something on the road ahead. As he slowed down to 25 miles per hour we came upon a wolf pack running down the “highway” in the same direction we were heading. There were 6 or 7 full grown, bushy white wolves with fur so thick, they looked like lions.  When we were almost to their heels, the pack split and we were driving in between the wolves.  It was surreal.

Sitting in a Honda Civic is basically like sitting on a skateboard.  The wolves’ heads were even with ours and they kept glancing at us with their silver eyes as they ran within 3 feet of the car.  CREEP ME OUT!  I proceeded to do what any civil minded woman would do… I began locking all the door locks… so the wolves wouldn’t get in the car.  Rick burst out in a guffaw saying, “Yeah, wolves are known for opening car door handles.”  Not funny.  He continued mocking me, “At least we’re driving our Civic and not our VW Rabbit!  Wolves eat rabbits.”  I was not laughing.

Our journey in the heat of the pack lasted less than a minute, but it felt like 487 minutes to me.  I was raised in the Silicon Valley, CALIFORNIA, for Pete’s sake.  I wasn’t accustomed to arctic wolves.  Finally the wolves separted and we began pulling away from the pack.  My mind was running amuck, as you can well imagine.  I started asking wolf questions.  “Do wolves eat people?”  Rick was very reassuring, “Not very often.  Only if they’re REALLY hungry and there’s not prey available.”  Good.  Relief washed over me.  “Those wolves looked REALLY hungry,” he added for his personal amusement.  Not funny AGAIN!

Rick thought the whole episode was very COOL!  I felt like Little Red Riding Hood trapped in a Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom show gone bad. 

See what I’ve put up with for 21 LONG years????  I hope I don’t have nightmares tonight. (Or if I do, I hope it’s the orangutan beating one again… see previous post:  https://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/pre-book-signing-nightmare/.)

www.LindaCrosby.com